Top boffins at the Large Hadron Collider – mightiest particle-punisher and largest machine of any kind ever assembled by humanity – say that they may have uncovered a vital clue explaining one of the greatest mysteries of physics: namely, how is it that matter itself can exist?
This is a mystery because the so-called Standard …

E=Mc^2

Sir

@Sir Spoon

Sure. An atomic bomb tends to follow the equation quite well. We already *know* that both a particle and anti-particle *completely* annihilate each other, which would mean 100% conversion to energy (be it heat, light, etc). Does it make a boom? Sure. Likely makes a fancy light display too. Do we have enough antimatter to test with? Nope. But just because I'm not outside to see that the sky is blue, my knowledge of light refraction tells me it likely is.

A question

Here where we are now, everything is matter, and here too, all the isomers are right-handed.

However over there (points); everything is anti-matter and the isomers are left-handed. Probably the aliens are also silicon based, although sure as eggs, James T. Kirk will get it away with one of them.

*BOOOOM*

Standard Deviants

Not many fules kno this, but the gnat's chuff is a unit of diameter, not velocity ~ and it takes about a million of them to equal one chocolate starfish, a mussel traditionally used by the British Navy for moving-target practice.

Is that a...

obligatory Hithchikers quote

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Strange? You want Strange?

There is antimatter out there....

....we just haven't met it yet.

At least that's the conclusion that a silly theory I came up with as a child (age about 10) would suggest.

In my theory, "before" the Big Bang the laws of electricity worked the other way. Like charges attracted, opposite charges repelled. Result: all matter congregated together, squeezing itself together as closely as possible.

Meanwhile all the antimatter squeezed itself together at the hyperspherical antipodes of where the matter was, to be as far away from it as possible.

But over the gigayears, this homophilic electric force weakened, passed through zero and out the other side, to become the homophobic force we know today. Result: this vast assemblage of matter suddenly found itself tro be in violation of the new laws of physics and broke up. The moment of zero crossing is what is conventionally known as the Big Bang.

Of course, a similar fate befell the agglomeration of antimatter half a universe away.

Crazy theory I admit, but one of its predictions (that the rate of expansion of the universe should itself be increasing) has recently been confirmed.

That collaboration, and therefore CERN itself are bunch of hypocrites looking for cheap labour.

Actually, management is so much more important than LHCb -- or any other experiment for that matter -- that it is simply outrageous. If you look at the proceedings of CHEP (Computing in High Energy Physics) you can verify for yourself. A bunch of manipulative sociopath to be careful with.

"The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value of Y) [where Y>X]